Free The Ragman's Memory by Archer Mayor Page A

the town’s fast-food outlets. In fact, before the Putney Road was metamorphosed into a “miracle mile,” Canal Street, along with lower Main, had ruled the commercial roost.
    But it had since acquired a tired, weather-beaten look, especially when compared to the Putney Road’s shiny glitz. The interspersing of decaying, multifamily residences, while giving Canal a more human feel, also injected an element of marginal despair. And because it was boxed in by the old wooden reminders of a past long gone, Canal had nowhere to go, while the Putney Road was former farmland and had acre upon acre left to heedlessly invade.
    As a result, Canal was where a business went that either had spotty financing, or hoped to cater to a largely poor-to-working-class population. It was also the home of Clipper Academy—a launching pad for aspiring hairdressers and a place to go for a very cheap cut, assuming you had low expectations and a flair for spontaneity.
    The manager, wearing a miniskirt and tottering on skyscraper spikes, greeted us at the door from under multihued eyebrows and a glistening, curly mass of black hair. She spoke loudly to be heard over the intermittent shrieking of air wrenches from the garage beyond a shared cinder block wall. “Good morning. May we help you?”
    Sammie, whom I’d never seen in makeup, nor wearing anything besides pants, practical shoes, and a short haircut, appeared speechless. I gave our hostess a discreet look at my badge. “I hope so. We’re from the police department, and we’re trying to trace the whereabouts of a client of yours.” I showed her Shawna’s picture.
    She looked at it carefully, holding it with stiffened fingers so her two-inch nails wouldn’t get in the way. “It’s a terrible cut.”
    “Does she look familiar?” Sammie asked.
    “No. When did she come here?”
    “We’re not sure,” I answered. “It might’ve been a year ago—maybe six months.”
    She shook her head, still looking at the picture. “We get so many people, and most of them for just one visit. You don’t have a name?”
    “Maybe. Does Shawna Davis ring a bell?”
    Her face lit up and she returned the photograph. “Well gosh, that makes it much easier. We keep a record of everyone who comes in, along with the student who did the work—it’s part of our teaching program.”
    While she was talking, she circled around to the back of a curved counter and retrieved a fat book much like the dentist’s from the day before. “That’s last year’s.” She got out a second one and laid it on top of the first. “And that’s the year before.”
    She opened the top one to a sample page. “They’re basically appointment books—day by day. You look under this column here, on each page, for the client names. Some of this other stuff is coded, so when you find who you’re after, I can translate for you.”
    She gave us both a bright, toothy, lipstick-smeared smile. “Okay? I gotta get back to work before someone gets a crew cut by mistake.”
    Sammie and I watched her totter away between rows of mismatching barber chairs, most of which were manned by young, nervous neophytes holding scissors with expressions of wonder and apprehension. It made me happy I’d been cutting my own hair for decades, even if the end result was what Gail called a “prison ’do.”
    We each took a book and began leafing through its contents, pausing occasionally at some nearly indecipherable scrawl, our eyes preconditioned for anything approaching “Davis.”
    About a half hour later, I found it, clearly written, along with the date—April 23rd of the previous year. I showed the entry to Sammie. “If J.P. was right about her dying a month and a half after she got her hair colored, that would put her death into June. When did Norah say her chickadees built their nest?”
    “Early July.”
    I caught the eye of the manager, far to the back of the salon, and beckoned to her. “Last June was hotter’n hell. By July, a